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PSS: Wisconsin Republicans reward the wealthy, destroy union rights; payback starts

Afghans are being killed in record numbers as the surge of U.S.-led foreign troops wages a massive new counterinsurgency campaign that has also destroyed thousands of homes and farms. The worsening tally compiled by the United Nations casts doubts on President Barack Obama’s decision to triple U.S. troop numbers to more than 100,000 in a concerted campaign to win Afghan hearts and minds. Although the UN report confirms what Canadian and U.S. military commanders have said for years – that the Taliban kill far more civilians – it also makes clear that Afghans blame foreign forces.

There’s "a greater perception by the wider Afghan community that the presence of international forces is responsible for higher levels of insecurity, is the cause for greater numbers of civilian casualties regardless of the perpetrator, and that international forces act with impunity," says the report, jointly compiled and published annually by the UN and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Blaming the U.S.-led foreign troops – after a decade of steadily worsening violence and scaled-up combat – isn’t only the view of ordinary Afghans. "Civilian casualties are a main cause of worsening the relationships between Afghanistan and the U.S.," an enraged Afghan President Hamid Karzai said after American attack helicopters killed nine young boys gathering firewood, the latest in a long series of gruesome mistakes that attract huge attention in and outside of Afghanistan. "People are tired of these things and apologies and condemnations are not healing any pain."

AWIP: Afghan civilian deaths at record high: UN

Up to 26 people are reported to have been killed after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck Japan, triggering a 10-metre-high tsunami along parts of the country's northeastern coastline. The massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck Japan on Friday, sweeping away cars, boats, homes and people as widespread fires burned out of control. Japan's NHK television reported many injuries and showed pictures of major tsunami damage in the north, with buildings being inundated by waves of water in Onahama city in Fukushima prefecture. The country's meteorological agency said 26 people had been confirmed dead in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami, and 44 fires had broken out across the country. The death toll included three people who were reportedly crushed to death when their houses collapsed in Ibaraki prefecture, northeast of the capital, Tokyo. News of the deaths came amid a warning that another strong quake could be imminent on the northeast Honshu island, Japan's main island.

PressTV: US issues tsunami alert for pacific coast
You Tube: Tsunami Hits Japan. Live Footage
BBC: Huge whirlpool created after Japan quake - VIDEO
USGS: Magnitude 8.8 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
PressTV: 8.9 magnitude quake hits Japan
The Telegraph: Japan earthquake and tsunami: live + Photos

This press conferred was given 5 mins ago. They are unable to cool the reactor from one of the power plants.

MSNBC: State of emergency is declared at Japanese nuclear plants - VIDEO & Text

In late January, Amnesty International wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates denouncing the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as "unnecessarily harsh and punitive" and in "breach the USA’s obligations under international standards and treaties." In the wake of the prolonged forced nudity to which Manning is now being subjected, Amnesty has escalated its denunciations: as the Associated Press put it today, the group is now "urging people to complain to the Obama administration about the confinement."

In particular, Amnesty said that "the conditions inflicted on Bradley Manning . . . amount to inhumane treatment by the US authorities" and "appear to breach the USA’s human rights obligations." As a result, the group is encouraging as many Americans as possible to demand an end to these conditions (independent of Amnesty, there is a planned protest outside the Quantico brig on March 20, expected to be fairly large in size, with others being planned at military detention facilities around the country for later dates). In case anyone is wondering what Amnesty is: it's the world's premiere human rights organization which Democrats once held up as authoritative on issues on detainee abuse circa 2001- January 20, 2009 -- remember that?

Yesterday, the Quantico base commander denied Manning's formal request for less harsh treatment -- including an end to his forced nudity and 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement.

Michigan quietly passes bill giving new Republican governor power to do anything in the name of economic stability: Void contracts, void collective bargaining agreements, dissolve town councils and school boards, fire elected officials, unincorporate towns, sell public property.

While we were venting our outrage at shenanigans in Wisconsin politics, in fact while Republicans were planning last night’s attempted coup, the Michigan state legislature quietly passed a bill giving the Governor of Michigan martial control over the state. Except instead of using actual military, the Governor is more likely to use private security. But make no mistake–rights would be suspended. Here’s how it works:

The governor, on his own initiative, can declare an economic emergency in any town and appoint an administrator. The administrator can be any person, including a corporate person. The administrator has the power to do anything in the name of economic stability, including void contracts, void collective bargaining agreements, dissolve the town council, dissolve the school board, fire anyone including elected officials, hire private security, unincorporate the town, and sell off public property. The people of the town have no say in this. They can neither demand nor turn away the administrator. That is because this provision is meant to be used against the people. What might constitute an emergency in the Governor’s eyes? A labor strike is the first thing that comes to mind. Too many foreclosures. Crime! In short, anything he wants it to be–and with billionaire backers, any controversy can be created. What might the administrator do in that emergency? First, privatize everything. Fire public workers and take over all public functions–running schools, police and fire service, and so on. Michigan just made this legal. Second, imprison dissidents, shutter businesses, and seize property by eminent domain. This is not legal, but hey, that didn’t stop the Wisconsin Republicans. In short, take over control and turn it into a corporate town.

[You Tube: Travesty of Justice: The Wisconsin coup]

High school students in Madison, Wisconsin will walk out of class this Friday, March 11th at 2:00 PM CT to hold a 3:00 CT teach-in on Library Mall in downtown Madison regarding the effects of collective bargaining elimination on public education, as well as the proposed education cuts in the Biennial Budget.

We are asking all students in the United States to walk out at 2:00 PM local time in solidarity with Wisconsin and to organize teach-ins on the attacks on public education and working families where you live.

Signed,
Wisconsin Students in Solidarity

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PSS: Wisconsin Republicans reward the wealthy, destroy union rights; payback starts
Stephen Lendman: Corporate Coup d'État in Wisconsin

The START database on terrorism in America, which tracks all incidents of political violence, shows that most attacks in the last two decades have been on black churches, reproductive rights facilities, government offices, and individual minorities. And those have been committed mainly by right-wing extremists. From 1990 to 2009, START identified 275 “homicide events’’ that killed 520 people and were committed by right-wing ideologues. There were many more incidents of destruction of property, nonfatal attacks, and other acts of thuggery by white supremacists, private militias, and the like.

Washington Post: Japanese Americans: House hearings on radical Islam 'sinister'

The peseta has been reintroduced in a small Spanish town nine years after it was replaced by the euro, in an attempt to boost its flagging economy. The townsfolk of Mugardos in northwestern Spain are being encouraged to search out forgotten stashes of the defunct currency and to spend it in local shops. More than 60 shops in the fishing village on the rugged Galician coast have agreed to accept pesetas alongside the euro in an attempt to encourage spending during a time of economic crisis. The initiative introduced on March 1, has seen people from across the region travelling to the town with old notes that they failed to convert into the new currency within the given time limit.

"People are coming with handfuls of change that they had at home and didn't know what to do with," the manager of the Juan Rey ironmonger in the town, said. "Now they have an opportunity to spend it."

The euro was introduced in Spain in January 2002 when Spaniards were given three months to exchange their old currency at any bank. Pesetas can still be converted today but only at the Bank of Spain in Madrid.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is to meet with leaders of Libya's opposition council during a trip to the Middle East next week, she has told US lawmakers. Clinton's statement of intent comes as France on Thursday became the first major European country to recognise Libya's opposition National Council based in Benghazi as the country's legitimate representative. In a separate joint statement with the United Kingdom, France also called for the Gaddafi "clique" to leave office.

"We are reaching out to the opposition inside and outside of Libya," [Clinton said while announcing her trip to Tunisia and Egypt.] "I will be meeting with some of those figures, both in the United States and when I travel next week, to discuss what more the United States and others can do," [she said].

The opposition council is led by Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former justice minister, who resigned soon after the Libyan government began a violent crackdown on protesters in February. Earlier, Gene Cretz, the US Ambassador to Libya, met with opponents of the government led by Muammar Gaddafi.